A Heartfelt Thank You from The OneLapCamaro

[James OLC]

Last weekend the Ultimate Street Car Association (USCA) and fifty of the coolest street cars in America (and a couple from Canada) got together at the historic Daytona International Speedway to participate in the third event of the inaugural USCA season. The weekend was split in to five disciplines following the very successful USCA formula – a road rally, a day on the road course, two sessions of autocrossing and two sessions of speed stop challenge along with a design and engineering competition.





There are a bunch of really positive reviews about the weekend that very accurately reflect most of the awesome highlights of the weekend (Daytona under the lights!) and there are several places that you can find a breakdown of “the numbers” from the weekend (3650 laps by 50 competitors!) but this won’t be one of those. Don’t get me wrong – it was an awesome event and I had a great time – but as most know or have probably heard my weekend very nearly ended Saturday evening on the Rolex 24-hour course when I crashed – putting the OLC into a concrete wall just after Rolex 4.





The day up to that point had been great – we had five 20-minute sessions on the road course and most of my “discomfort” hanging over from last year’s One Lap of America stop at the track was gone and we were heading out for two final sessions under the lights. In the afternoon I was able to experience the indescribably uncomfortable sensation of passing on the high banks of the NASCAR superspeedway on more than one occasion. I think that the only thing more uncomfortable then passing someone on the outside at 155 mph has to be passing someone on the inside at 155 mph – it’s amazing that a thin yellow strip of paint can intimidate you more than a four foot safer barrier with “Daytona” emblazed down it’s length.

[James OLC]

The car was running well all day and we had a solid top-ten time going with the potential to crack the top five (we wound up 8th on the road course) and I was looking forward to a break from the 100 degree heat to pick things up a bit. I went out on the days sixth session with my Stilo helmet fixed to my HANS device and belted in by my Willans 6-point harness… I came in from that same session in the NASCAR ambulance with the OLC on the back of the same wrecker that had carted some pretty famous racecars around over the years. Not the end of the session that I was anticipating.



So what happened? Long story short – the car got loose, the back end came around, the front end got in the dirt and everything ended with the OLC in a concrete wall. There are plenty of pictures and a couple of videos from the crash and I’m happy to discuss what may or may not have happened before or during the crash but the true story of the USCA and our weekend at Daytona was what happened after the crash.







First off – a note about safety. The USCA splits cars in to three categories – Novice, Intermediate, and Expert. Those categories not only define the experience levels of the drivers (which is always somewhat arbitrary at best) but the level of preparedness as well. I was running in the expert group and my experience notwithstanding the USCA rules call for my car and safety gear to meet an expert level of preparedness. Driving suit, gloves, shoes, neck restraint, helmet, roll bar, fire extinguisher are all mandatory in the Expert run group where drivers are given more freedom and judgment then the other groups. I have been wearing the HANS device for a little bit over a year now along with my lightweight Stilo helmet - I cannot imagine running without either – I now feel uncomfortable in the car without my HANS. There is a reason for all of this gear and I demonstrated it on Saturday night – I spun the car at 120+ and nosed in to the wall at a pretty decent rate of speed and walked away with nothing more than a profound sense of disappointment. I was checked out by the NASCAR paramedic and would have gone to the infield care center (track policy following contact with immovable objects) had it been open. Aside from an accelerated heart rate and elevated BP I was fine.

Buy the right safety gear and use it – stuff happens. Now back to the car…

[James OLC]

The wrecker met the ambulance back in our garage area and I got my first look at the car. I new that it hadn’t caught fire (there had been three guys with thankfully unused extinguishers at the ready when I got out of the car) but on the truck it looked like a mess. The driver’s front was flat, the splitter was pulled under the car, the horn of the AME subframe was sticking through the lower valance and of course the fender was about two feet outside of where it was supposed to be. The LED headlight was gone - as was the headlight bucket - and the rad support was broken and resting on the down tube. To get the car off the wrecker we needed to pry the valence up while the wrecked pulled forward. It was a sobering endeavor.





When we finally got the car off the truck and pushed in to the garage the weight of the moment was really sinking in. I was 2,800 miles from home without a truck and trailer and, at this point, my mind was reeling with the question of how I was going to get the car fixed… or home… and what that would mean to the rest of the season… or next season. Then the TV folks came in and did their thing and then people started to arrive… and that’s when the fun started.



It began with a quick evaluation of the damage – or the lack thereof – and it snowballed from there. I think that Rodney Prouty was probably the first guy there and the two of us started looking things over. Amazingly there were no fluids under the car, the radiator was intact, and aside from the power steering reservoir cap missing there didn’t seem to be any mechanical carnage. I briefly considered trying to start the car – a bit of a Dale Sr. moment – but noticed that the rad support had pushed backwards and my air box was against the crank pulley. At this point more and more folks are coming over and jumping in as we slowly start grabbing tools to pull the (untouched!?) hood off and remove the fender to get a better look. With the fender out of the way we were able to pull the rad support forwards and get the air box off the crank pulley allowing me to try starting the car. Amazingly (at the time) the car fired right up and that was when everything changed…





By now the last of the cars were coming off the track from the final session of the day and more and more folks were filtering in to my garage area. I turned around and suddenly there was a floor jack beside me (which we used to pry the valence off the subframe)… a few minutes later the folks from RideTech wheeled their crash cart over… which was followed by a new 315/30-18 Falken tire… and more people. Our focus somehow changed from assessing the damage to seeing what we could do to make the car mobile before the decision was made to try to fix the car enough to finish the Daytona event.



Chad Reynolds – Mav-TV announcer and a hot rodder in every sense of the word - was surveying the cast off parts and piped up that he thought he could maybe get the fender useable and a few minutes later there were two guys jumping up and down on the fender with Chad beating the tar out of it with a 5-pound hammer. From that point until the garage area closed is now just a blur but I would hazard to say that at some points there were a dozen or more guys working on the car – reshaping, repairing, fastening and zip tying hoses and wiring back. There is no doubt that I will miss some folks but a hats off to everyone who made an extraordinary effort that night – most of the staff of RideTech was there including Rodney, Brit, Greg, Josh and Bret; Mike Copeland from Lingenfelter was elbows deep at one point, as was OPTIMA Batteries’ Cameron Douglass. John Parsons helped out, as did Ken, the trucker who hauled the OLC to Daytona and countless other folks who I unfortunately wasn’t able to spend much time with or thank properly.

[James OLC]

When the Daytona security folks kicked us out at 11 the OLC actually looked like a car… from the passenger side. As Rodney posted at one point – the car looks fine… from the stands… We needed to get the tire replaced in the morning and tie up some of the final loose ends and we had a chance to finish the weekend.



At 7 am Sunday morning I took the most unique “morning after cab ride of shame” to the track and immediately set about stitching together the sheet metal while patiently waiting for Pep boys to open to try to get a new tire mounted and balanced… assuming that the Forgeline wheel had survived the impact unscathed. During the 8 am drivers meeting someone pulled the wheel and tire off and at 9 am we were at Pep boys where a half hour later we left with sticky new tire and wheel with nothing more than a scratch where some combination of concrete and fender whacked it.













To bring a long story to a shorter conclusion… with a patched up car held together by zip ties and vice grips and an alignment that looked “mostly OKish” and felt fine in the parking lot I headed out to the Speed Stop Challenge to see how things really felt. I made probably 10 runs on the SSC – “gradually” pushing harder and harder until the electric fan died – before heading back to the pits. The car seemed OK (with some odd noises here and there) and the fact that we ended up 4th in the SSC supported that low speed stuff was holding together. After a quick review and repair of a shorted out fan wire I headed over to the Autocross to try something a bit quicker. I got three runs in on the AX before (regrettably) running out of gas… at which point I decided to call it a day. There was room for improvement to be sure but as the day continued it was clear that I wasn’t physically or mentally in top form.



At the end of the day I don’t get to tell the story of conquering Daytona but I can tell a much better story about how, with the help of some great friends, I was able to conquer something much tougher.

My sincerest thanks to everyone who helped that night and to all those who reached out; I am blessed – we are blessed – to belong to such an awesome community.

[novahollic]

Fantastic story! There are few things better than a group of people coming together to work hard and help out a friend (or a stranger).

It's pretty cool how often you see this at the race track.

[Vince@Meanstreets]

I saw it on FB. Sorry to hear about the contact James but you know that happens. Im just glad it was the front and not the rear. Cool that you were able to continue.

Zip ties...the new duct tape

That had to of been Prouty with that RideTech cover up right?

I think you conqured something....the first Camaro to run vortex generators!!